Merrimack Valley

O'Reilly pushes for debates with Kerry

By Edward Mason
Staff writer
Published: July 29, 2008

BOSTON — With eight weeks until the state Democratic primary, Gloucester attorney Ed O'Reilly is pressing U.S. Sen. John Kerry for a series of debates across the state.

In a letter sent to Kerry, O'Reilly asked for 23 debates — a combination of public forums and television appearances — between now and the Sept. 16 primary. No schedule has been established, and with the primary closing in, O'Reilly wants to get moving.

"He has to come back to Massachusetts and debate the issues," O'Reilly said.

Kerry, first elected in 1984, doesn't share O'Reilly's urgency. Roger Lau, his campaign manager, said the senator can't agree to a schedule until he knows when the Senate will recess. While an August recess is planned, it's possible the Senate will work into the month to finish its business.

"The short version is the Senate still has to go through the legislative calendar," Lau said. "As soon as we know when the Senate adjourns, we'll talk about a response."

O'Reilly, a former Gloucester city councilor and first-time statewide candidate, is seeking as many debates as possible with Kerry. The inability to nail down a debate schedule, first pressed by O'Reilly in a June 10 Eagle-Tribune story, has led to testy exchanges.

In an e-mail Lau sent to O'Reilly, which he shared with The Eagle-Tribune, Lau wrote that Kerry had a busy legislative schedule and asked for contact information for O'Reilly's campaign manager. Lau yesterday said he's still not received that information.

For his part, O'Reilly, who early last night said that information would be sent to the Kerry campaign, said he expected to discuss the debates with the senator.

"I want a response from Sen. Kerry, not from a surrogate," O'Reilly said. "I didn't send (the letter) to Roger Lau. He's not on the September ballot."

O'Reilly is proposing a series of town hall-style forums, one in each of the state's 14 counties. In those events, the candidates would take questions directly from local voters.

They'd also field questions from reporters and audience members at each of the five University of Massachusetts campuses and four community colleges, including North Shore Community College.

O'Reilly also has accepted invitations to appear in four televised debates, including WBZ-TV, WGBH-TV in Boston and New England Cable News.

Lau suggested O'Reilly's expansive debate proposal might be too much. Lau managed Congresswoman Niki Tsongas' 2006 campaign, and that race featured 27 debates over several months.

"There were 27 debates total, and there are about 50 days left before the (Senate) primary," Lau said. "And there's the national (Democratic) convention, and the senator is obligated to that, too."